


The Story of How Souji Got a Really Great Rack

by aphelion_orion



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Crack, F/M, Genderswap, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphelion_orion/pseuds/aphelion_orion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Souji thought for a moment, before returning his gaze to his newly buttonless shirt.</p><p>"Well, we can't stay here forever. For one, I'm going to need a bra."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There were a number of ways you could choose to react to the daily trials of the TV world. The first and most obvious one was to go thoroughly insane, and there was something to be said about mental stamina after the third time of being drenched in the oh-god-I-hope-it's-just-saliva excretions of a neon-striped floating ball with a pair of nightmarish lips that might or might not be the portal to another dimension.

The second was to console yourself with the idea that it was all just a really, really screwed up dream wherein the ecstatic gyrations of a giant faceless poledancer could actually hurt you, but that didn't work so well when facing down these things had almost become a routine exercise.

The third and by far most effective one was to find the next vertical surface and proceed to bash your head in. Which just happened to be the option Yosuke was looking into at the moment.

"Hm," Rise said, Kanzeon's visor slowly disintegrating around her eyes. "I really don't know what to do about this. If it's a spell, I can't locate it... you read just fine to me, Sempai. Apart from. Well. Sorry."

"It's okay, really. Don't worry about it," Souji assured her, as calm and collected as if it were happening to someone else.

And it should have been happening to someone else, Yosuke thought guiltily, except if it had been him, he would have been screaming that the Earth had left its customary orbit and was falling into the sun at a million kilometers per hour, not holding his shirt together with one hand and giving Rise consoling pats on the shoulder with the other.

"Well, simple techniques are usually the best solutions," Chie said. "How about Patra?"

"We tried that," Yukiko sighed. "All of them. Nothing works."

"Maybe sempai can't undo it himself?"

"But none of us have..." Yukiko paused, reached over, and shook Teddie out of his stupor. "Stop gaping and try Amrita! Maybe the all-purpose one will stick."

It took two tries for Teddie to even call forth his persona, and after four failed attempts at casting Amrita, he gave up.

"You're not even trying," Chie said, hands on her hips and rapidly losing her patience with Teddie's moon-eyed gazing.

"I can't help it, okay?" Teddie sniffed, unable to use the fake hurt to its full effect in the face of the... situation. "I mean, who'd want them to disappear? They're sensei-tional!"

"One more pun, and I swear I'm going to turn you into a bathroom mat," Kanji growled, determinedly staring at an indefinite point on the sparkling walls of the strip club.

Naoto, who was the only one apart from Souji and Teddie who hadn't dissolved into a frantic, worried mess, pinched the bridge of her nose. "Arguing about it isn't going to get us anywhere. If we can't determine the cause, it may be a timed effect that's going to dissipate sooner or later."

Yosuke lifted his head from the sizable indentation in the wall. "You aren't seriously going to suggest we just sit around and wait this out."

"At this point, I don't see another option. If we just try spells at random, there is a good chance we could, in fact, make it worse. If Sempai's feeling fine, otherwise..." She looked towards Souji for confirmation.

"I'm alright," Souji said. "Just a bit... tingly, if that means anything. If we gate out now, we could probably still hit the general store."

"Good idea," Chie said. "The old lady sells all kinds of crazy remedies. Maybe one of those will—"

"Are you insane?!" Yosuke snapped, turning around and immediately regretting it. He fumbled for a moment, trying to remember what he'd meant to object to and how to breathe without sounding like he was wheezing. "I. You. I mean, we. We can't go out like that! Half of Inaba knows us! Actually, half of Inaba knows _you_. How on Earth are we going to explain this?!"

Souji thought for a moment, before returning his gaze to his newly buttonless shirt. "Well, we can't stay here forever. For one, I'm going to need a bra."


	2. Chapter 2

Thankfully, Junes was large and busy enough even on a Tuesday evening that they didn't stand out nearly as much as they otherwise would have, moving along in a tight formation, heads occasionally swiveling to cast nervous glances at their surroundings.

Yosuke thought they were about as subtle as a bunch of criminals trying to smuggle a bomb, but took comfort in the fact that at least, the girls were with them, which would make the by now inevitable-seeming encounter with a mall patrol and the subsequent questions that much less awkward.

Kanji had taken it upon himself to play the vanguard, looking disgruntled enough to make any curious passersby immediately avert their eyes. He had also, in true gentlemanly fashion, shrugged out of his jacket and draped it around Souji's shoulders, which had been a truly strange sight to behold, but at least did wonders to conceal Souji's torn shirt. Chie and Yukiko had posted themselves at Souji's sides, so it fell to Yosuke to bring up the rear (for which he was very grateful) and keep Teddie as far away from their leader's front as possible.

Naoto had disappeared with Rise to find the nearest semi-empty clothing store, which turned out not to be close by at all because, as Naoto testified breathlessly, Rise refused to even consider a shop that didn't carry Cecil McBee.

"It's just a bra," Chie sighed, and smoothly elbowed Teddie back into Yosuke's vicinity from which he'd escaped.

"It's not just a bra!" Rise was puffing herself up as well as her diminutive stature would allow, imperiously waving them towards a boutique that, to Yosuke, looked just like any other. "I refuse to let Sempai's first bra be of subpar quality!"

"I still don't see why we couldn't have gone to the sports section real quick. They have nice, practical bras. And t-shirts."

"But she's right," Yukiko said, "those aren't all nice and comfy."

"Lacy, you mean."

"We must respect Sensei's breasts!" Teddie put in helpfully, and Yosuke nearly tripped over his own feet.

"I am going to find a pair of socks," Kanji said, his shoulders shaking with the effort of staying where he was to preserve Souji's dignity. "And stuff that damn bear's mouth."

"But—!"

"Can we please. stop. talking. about Seta's boobs," Yosuke moaned, not sure how much longer he could stand being in the twilight zone with a bunch of people who seemed to have absolutely zero interest in protecting Souji's manhood.

Souji, who, until then, had been following the council of war surrounding his underwear with a sort of bemused fascination, turned to give him a reassuring smile. "They're just trying to help."

"Gah," Yosuke said, and slapped a hand over his eyes a bit more painfully than intended.

"Whoops," Souji said, grabbing a better hold of his shirt again.

"Don't just say 'whoops'," Yosuke hissed, really not keen on getting another eyeful of something that simply _shouldn't be there_. "You could try freaking out at least a little. At this point, it'd be a comfort."

"I'm sure it won't take long," Souji assured him, and ducked into the store.

\-----

The inside of the boutique looked as garish and girly as the outside, except that now Yosuke found himself surrounded by a press of frilly, poofy, flower-patterned clothing racks from all sides. It wasn't that he wasn't used to sticking his head in now and then to call people to staff meetings or help with unboxing, it was just that the idea of Souji in one of their changing rooms was completely insane and worthy of stern protest.

And, as per usual, nobody was listening to him.

The only two people who seemed to be even remotely on his side couldn't really engage in sharing their concerns, either, Naoto busy trying to implement some measure of damage control to Souji's future wardrobe by objecting loudly when Rise and Yukiko made a beeline for a section that seemed to consist entirely of variations of pink and purple horrors. Kanji, who was lingering with Yosuke at the store entrance, evidently under the influence of the same brand of disturbing mental images and of the opinion that Teddie should be kept far away from anything that remotely looked like feminine underwear, couldn't do more than call out a weak, "You okay, Sempai?" that got lost when Souji was ushered behind a set of curtains.

"The world's gone crazy," Yosuke sighed, resigned to the fact that the trip to the general store and thus a possible, if unlikely, remedy would have to be put off until tomorrow.

Kanji grunted in agreement. "Yosuke-sempai, you keep that bear away from the changing stalls. I'm gonna go see about those socks."

At least, keeping Teddie distracted wasn't such a hard task in an environment that, by nature, was incredibly distracting. Yosuke steered him in front of a wall rack full of colorful hair extensions, make-up, and clip-on earrings, and, once Teddie was fully engaged in giving himself pink-striped pigtails, left to support Naoto in her efforts.

Unfortunately, by the time he arrived in front of the cubicle, Naoto had been all but defeated.

"Sempai, the numbers are mere approximations. I could go ask somebody about a measuring tape..."

"Oh, just toss it back out if it doesn't feel comfy," Rise said flippantly, bustling by with a set of bras that, much to Yosuke's dismay, were all about cutesy ribbons and holes in impossible places.

"This is... hard," Souji said, the curtain swaying in time with what seemed to be his writhing in torment.

"You need any help with the clasps, Sempai?"

"No!" Yosuke burst out, finally shaking off his stupor.

"No, it's fine, Rise," Souji mercifully agreed after a pause. "I just think I might need another size."

"Okay. YUKIKO-SEMPAI, CHIE-SEMPAI, BRING ON THE Cs!"

"What? No way!"

"Yes way!"

Weak-kneed, Yosuke leaned against a full-length mirror, closed his eyes, and prayed to wake up soon.

\-----

"Oi. Yosuke-sempai."

A rough hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

"Only if you can tell me I got k.o.'d by a Shadow and this is all some vision of terror brought on by a dose of Pulinpa."

"'fraid not," Kanji said ruefully. "Maybe you should have a glass of water or something. I gotta get these to Sempai."

"Wait, what?!" Yosuke opened his eyes, only to be confronted with an armful of blouses and jeans. "Oh, you've _got_ to be kidding me."

"Someone's gotta make sure Sempai actually comes out presentable," Kanji grumbled, before whipping around to catch Rise in the act of sneaking a bodice into Souji's cubicle. "Drop that and back away slowly. We're trying to get Sempai _dressed_ , not drag him out for a clubbing night."

"You're no fun." Pouting, Rise turned on her heel and stalked back into the lingerie section. "I'm gonna go look for bikinis."

Yosuke hit his head against the mirror. "Please, stop. Make it stop."

"Well, I'm going to need something if we still want to do that trip on Wednesday." Souji's hand came forth between the curtains, and Kanji deposited his findings while pointedly looking elsewhere. "Thanks, Kanji-kun. I don't think I was made for micro-skirts."

Kanji shook his head. "That girl's gone crazy. I'll go make sure she doesn't come back with anything sparkly."

"I'm just not looking forward to waxing my legs."

"I am sending you my therapy bill," Yosuke threatened, but only received a chuckle in return.

It was hardly the first time he'd seen Souji completely unfazed at the idea of wearing girls' clothing, but at least the last time, the change hadn't been quite so thorough, complete with curvy hips and a higher-pitched voice and a rack that really, really couldn't be blamed on Yukiko's overblown sense of vengeance.

"I'm glad you think this is funny, but might I remind you we still have to figure out what to do about all this? Hell, how are we gonna explain it to your uncle?"

Rustling noises. "I know. But at least everyone's calm now, right?"

"Well, I'm not."

"Obviously," Souji said, something like fond exasperation coloring his tone. "That's why I've got to be calm for both of us."

"Geez, you just had to put it like that," Yosuke sighed, teeth worrying his lip at the new bout of guilt.

"Hey, you know how I mean it. It's really not as cataclysmic as it seems. Now that I'm dressed again, we can all put our heads together and think it through."

The curtains parted, Souji stepping out in a ruffly blue halter top and a pair of girl's khakis, still in the process of figuring out the strings on a bobbin lace vest.

"Kanji's pick," he explained at Yosuke's extended bout of staring.

Yosuke groaned. "Thanks for that image."

"Could you move aside? That cubicle didn't have a full length mirror."

"You're _really_ getting into this, man," Yosuke said. "Your uncle's going to skin us alive."

"He wouldn't. We just... need to make sure that there's a chair at hand. And maybe coffee. And be prepared to catch him if he faints." Souji adjusted the vest and shook his feet in their customary sneakers. "I'm going to need an extra pair of shoes... I really can't run in those anymore."

"You—"

"Oooh, Sempai, you're looking mighty fine," Rise squealed, rushing down the aisle with a helpless Naoto and Kanji in tow. "And I found a super-cute tankini with silver dots and extra bust support! You've got to give it a try!"

"Um, could you tell them to put it aside or something?" Souji said. "It's almost dinnertime and I still need to think of how to prepare my family."

"Oh, right. Chie-sempai's gone to find Teddie, so we could—"

"I think I left him with the beauty products," Yosuke said.

"Abandoned me, you mean!" Teddie ducked out of an intersection, an over-sized ribbon in his hair. "Lucky for us, I've devoted my time to thinking about the proper accessories for Sensei! Voilà!"

"I think my hair might be too short for this," Souji said, examining the truly impressive array of hair clips, mascara and lipstick. "And... somehow I don't think cherry passion explosion is my color."

"Finally!" Yosuke crossed his arms, feeling vindicated and reassured that Souji hadn't really lost his common sense. "Thank you."

"...I guess I'll try peach instead."


	3. Chapter 3

Ryoutarou Dojima considered himself to be a down-to-earth and fairly open-minded person. It came with being a cop, and especially with being a cop in a small-town region, where people wanted him to interview their pet cats as eye-witnesses, the elderly were consistently ready to blame misdemeanors on angry mountain gods, and half the population's housewives thrived on gossip like roses in sunlight. For that matter, so did their husbands, but they preferred to think of themselves as superior to tittering in hushed whispers and generally presented it as sharing valuable, unbiased information.

That being what it was, Dojima had to be ready to accept quite a number of outlandish behaviors, and, since his nephew had kindly introduced him to television sets that harbored interdimensional nightmares and monster-summoning murderers, to take a lot of evidence at face value, too.

So when he opened the door to his nephew wearing said evidence encased in a bobbin lace vest and baby-blue flower top, he did the down-to-earth, sensible thing: He grabbed the door frame for support.

In a way, he knew what was coming long before anyone in the group could get their mouth to move. He'd seen Souji patiently sit through round after round of Nanako's pretty-princess-dress-me-up fancies, and the incident he had thankfully not been present for at last year's school festival had stayed a secret only as long as the average Inaba secret-keeping stamina lasted (about five seconds). However, the congregation of embarrassed faces on his doorstep immediately told Dojima that whatever had happened was much, much worse than a bunch of bored teenagers stuck in hickville trying to find ways to make their summer vacation interesting.

"Um. We can explain, sir. Well, kinda. Maybe. Just a little?" Hanamura bit his lip, glancing towards Souji with a vague mixture of guilt, despair, and the hope that Souji would somehow transform back into his regular self before he would have to try his hand at an actual explanation.

Dojima thought it wisest to usher them all into the living room, if only so he could find a chair to sit down.

"It was an accident," the Kujikawa girl added helpfully, though Dojima noted she sounded considerably less miserable about the entire thing than her face let on.

"With sensei-tional results!"

There was the muffled sound of somebody's foot hitting a painful place.

With a long-suffering sigh, Shirogane pinched the bridge of her nose. "What they mean is, we unfortunately have no lead on what caused the change, or how to reverse it."

Hanamura grimaced. "Yes, because someone had to go shopping instead."

"Hey, it was necessary. Sempai needed those bras."

Dojima thought the faint, tortured wheeze that escaped his throat was a rather efficient, if undignified way of keeping the conversation from dissolving into aimless bickering.

"Are you all right?"

Souji had stepped forward to peer at him with concern, and it really wasn't helping that he still mostly looked and sounded like Souji, and also appeared to be taking the transformation frighteningly well. Dojima felt he would be coping a lot better if he were the one forced to console Souji instead, in some semblance of normal family dynamics and the reaction a normal teenage boy could be expected to have upon coming home as a teenage girl. Not that 'normal' had ever applied to anything surrounding Souji, but he felt Souji could have tried to be at least a _little_ inconsolable for his sake.

"I... yes." Dojima shook his head, and just decided to follow police protocol. Ask questions, make notes, take stock of the situation. Even if the situation was situated on his nephew. "So this... change. This change is due to...?"

He still couldn't quite bring himself to say "TV" without feeling thoroughly insane.

Souji nodded. "We're pretty sure, yes. I mean, we weren't really doing anything out of the ordinary—" Except slaying untold horrors and converting their remains into pocket money for a day trip to Okina, but that, Dojima reminded himself, was the new 'ordinary'. "—so this came a bit out of the blue."

"But... you're not hurt?"

"No. No, I'm fine. Just... like that." A handwave, as if Souji were gesturing at a set of particularly average curtains.

"Good. That's good." Dojima swallowed, sitting up a little straighter. Police protocol really was helping. "So... I take it this is... thorough?"

"Um."

To his surprise, Souji colored a little, while Hanamura and Tatsumi readily took over Dojima's breathing problems.

"Um, yes. Afraid so." Souji was looking almost contrite now, as if the alternative were any better.

Dojima nodded in the most neutral way possible. Under different circumstances, he would have ordered a visit to the hospital and not taken no for an answer, but he had the feeling they wouldn't even be able to get through the first part of, "Well, my nephew had to enter a parallel universe where magic dictated he must be a girl," without getting one or both of them committed to a mental institution. Plus, if the bear proved anything, it was that modern science seemed to be quite useless against anything to do with TVs.

He truly ought to be handling this better. By some twist of nature, Souji might have turned out to be the most mature teenager on the planet, but that still didn't absolve Dojima of parental duties, and one of the primary parental duties was overprotective fussing. He might not be good at fussing, but he was good at being overprotective, and Souji, whether he admitted it or not, needed looking after. And someone to tell him to stop downplaying his problems. And someone who could do things his little gang couldn't do, such as anything other than a whispered council on what to do if Souji couldn't change back, and whether or not Hanamura's ruling that this was a terrible catastrophe should indeed be considered the opinion of all.

Clearing his throat, Dojima pushed himself up. "Alright. That's quite enough. You all get home. Souji needs to rest."

"I'm fine, really."

"And I don't care, really," Dojima cut in, and was slightly disturbed to have his words countered by the girl version of the "thank you for yelling at me" smile. "Just. Go. Lie down. I won't have you taking _this_ lightly. We'll decide what to do later."

He turned and shuffled towards the kitchen, trying to decide on food appropriate to bring to a person who probably just had his entire body chemistry turned on its head. It felt a bit too incompetent to just take the Souji-brand egg-drop soup from the fridge, so he settled for hunting through the cabinets for some medicinal tea.

At the very least, it provided sufficient distraction from the fact that a few of the parting well-wishes sounded quite insincere, or that someone was currently getting kicked in a painful place again for attempted hugging. Eventually, the front door opened and closed a couple of times, leaving behind the rustling of a mildly alarming number of store-brand plastic bags.

"I've got it, I really do."

"Forget it. Your uncle's right, you should be resting."

Still rifling through the kitchen drawers, Dojima nodded to himself, satisfied that for all the unreliable elements in Souji's circle of friends, there seemed to be some who still had their head on their shoulders.

"I never knew you could be such a gentleman."

"Shut up, Seta. Shut up with your face. Ow."

"...the staircase is this way."

"Um. Right. I knew that. I'll just get these to your room."

In retrospect, Dojima would blame his response delay on the fact that he finally found Nanako's flu tea tucked into the towel drawer, most likely courtesy of Nanako who couldn't stand to drink it. He liked to believe that it was the tea, and not his utterly overtaxed mind still trying to come to grips with what had just transpired, which somehow caused him to miss the significance of Hanamura's voice disappearing up the stairs, and of the second set of feet belonging to Souji, and also the fact that Hanamura was quite male, while Souji was currently not.

By the time it hit him, however, Hanamura had already whizzed back down the stairs and out the door with just a squeaky-voiced goodbye, leaving Dojima to cope with the realization that he'd been up there for a _full five minutes_ , and that he really ought to start policing who had unsupervised access to Souji's room.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: The Suffering of Young Yosuke. Also, bikinis.


	4. Chapter 4

Upon waking up on Wednesday morning, the first thing Souji did was to perform a general inventory on himself. He'd never had to, before, but he figured, what with newly being a girl and all, it would be prudent to check whether the change didn't violate any laws of human biology, beyond the mere fact that he had turned into a girl at all.

The good news was that all his limbs were still in working order, if slightly achy from the redistribution of his weight. He also hadn't developed any extra breasts, a taste for virgin flesh or tentacles, which, considering where the transformation had set in, was altogether a borderline miracle. The bad news was that he had promptly forgotten how to put on a bra.

Rummaging around in yesterday's shopping bags, he fished out one of the deceptively simple-looking contraptions — light blue, at Kanji's insistence, since, "That girl's mad, sempai. You're a winter, not a spring!" — and tried to figure out the best way to contort himself into reaching for the straps at the back. At least, most of the underwear in his size had turned out to be leaning towards the practical side, without too many rhinestones and lacy trimmings — most uncomfortable sensation in his life, having the synthetic lace itch and chafe in places that had no business itching and chafing, and really, how _did_ girls manage?

After several more yoga poses to adjust his underwear, and discovering that Rise had managed to smuggle a pair of thigh-high stockings into his new wardrobe for the ultimate zettai ryouiki experience, Souji found he was starting to develop not just a new understanding of the female form, but also a heretofore unknown appreciation for the simplicity of guys' fashion. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the pull-zip-button order of things, he felt as he was struggling with the strings on the bobbin vest, and the person who had invented fake pants pockets simply needed to — well, not die, but have an encounter with a rabid Tasmanian devil, perhaps.

At this rate, he was going to need a purse.

A good half hour and several encounters with fake buttons, zippers, and the impossibility of getting the stockings to stay where they ought to later, Souji paused to regard himself in the mirror on the inside of his wardrobe door. For his first attempt at dressing himself, it hadn't turned out too bad; maybe a little lopsided, but he could count on Rise to arrange all the superfluous straps in a fashion-forward manner.

All this, of course, was just a detraction from the true problems, namely that, one, nobody had the faintest idea what had hit him — and only him — or how to reverse it. For a moment, a line of gender-switched versions of his friends marched through his mind, paused briefly to let him confirm that a v-neck really wasn't very flattering on Kanji, what _had_ Rise been thinking, and vanished out of sight again.

Picking up the butterfly clips (courtesy of Teddie), Souji shook his head. Hopefully, this wasn't permanent. Not that he minded especially, it was a bit strange, that was all, he just wasn't looking forward to explaining to his parents that their son was now their daughter. They tended to take any sort of drastic changes to life's itinerary not very well, and he didn't want to imagine how they would take any of the information he would have to supply to convince them that he hadn't run away and secretly had gender reassignment surgery. TVs, murders, portals into other worlds and ancient gods with ancient grudges weren't the kind of thing the Seta parts of the family seemed particularly well-equipped to deal with.

Here, Souji felt it appropriate to send a quick prayer of thanks to the powers that be for his uncle's well-now-I've-really-seen-everything cop attitude.

And then there was the matter of the team being worried about him, something that yesterday's impromptu shopping spree had managed to gloss over if not thoroughly alleviate. He was sure that if he went to look at his messages, he'd probably find a dozen terminated calls on record, all dialed around midnight when the sheer strangeness of the experience had settled and everyone had begun wondering about the endless number of ways the change might affect his health.

Truth be told, Souji wasn't nearly as concerned about it as he probably ought to have been; he didn't _feel_ very different, sense of bodily displacement and sudden urge to do something more interesting with his hair aside. In fact, he felt oddly at ease, comforted by a certainty that it would all make sense with time, though he couldn't have said how he knew.

Perhaps it was just his sense of responsibility kicking in, reminding him once again of what he'd told Yosuke yesterday — panicking was sure to solve nothing, and an uneasy leader made for an uneasy team.

As if it had sensed the thought, his cell phone gave a little jingle to signal the arrival of the first of what would likely be several worried texts.

_Hey, partner._

Yosuke. Souji smiled. Of course, he'd be first. He could practically sense the moment's hesitation before Yosuke's fingers had chosen to type out the familiar nickname, too.

_You doing okay?  
Any change?  
Let me know if you wanna cancel the trip.  
I'll tell the others._

Shaking his head, Souji experimentally stuck his feet in his sneakers, and found he'd need about two pairs of socks to properly fit them with his newly delicate girl feet. Not quite willing to put more layers of cloth between himself and the world in the sweltering heat than necessary, he went hunting for band-aids instead.

Canceling the trip wouldn't do, not when they'd spent all day yesterday shaking down shadows for pocket money. Summer vacation in Inaba was all that had kept him going during June's extra cram classes, packed into a classroom with forty other straight-A students in downtown Tokyo and nobody to interrupt the steady drone of the teacher with little notes.

_/No worries, I'm good.  
We're still on. I'll meet you guys at 8:30—/_

He might no longer fit his swim suit, but that didn't mean he couldn't at least hang his legs in the water. Speaking of legs...

Souji paused in applying preemptive band-aids to his toes, looking back at the mirror for a last critical appraisal and deciding that here was another thing that wouldn't do. Girl shorts didn't go all that well with the average guy's upkeep of his shins.

With a quick glance at the clock, his thumb hit the erase button.

_/9:00./_

That ought to give him enough time. Nodding to himself with a sense of satisfaction, Souji made his way to the bathroom to locate the shaving kit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Nanako is confused, Dojima is resigned, and Yosuke can't find a sturdy enough surface to bash his head in.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nanako finds out.

By the time his legs were passably smooth and silky — courtesy of a misappropriated razor, some hand lotion, and plus or minus another band-aid or two — Souji was certain of two things. One, it was now way too late to start making breakfast. That in itself wasn't much of a problem for anything except his conscience. And two, being a girl was seriously _hard_. Forget babies and glass ceilings and all the other things that might become the subject of an impromptu Kashiwagi rant, women had to be micromanagement geniuses just to avoid spending half a day in the bathroom. 

True, he could have called up Rise to employ her expertise on the subject, but he'd been a little worried she would take this as her cue to show up on his doorstep with a complete waxing kit, and he wasn't quite _that_ ready to suffer in the name of fashion. Not to mention explaining to his uncle why there was a pop idol wrangling his nephew into their upstairs bathroom at seven in the morning was a bit more than either of them could handle. 

Giving a last experimental tug to assure himself of his bra-hooking skills, Souji slung his backpack on his shoulder and made his way down the stairs, towards the comforting smell of strong black coffee. As much as he was sorry for inadvertently forcing his family to cope with the effects of bizarre magic from another dimension, he still felt like a donation to the Tatsuhime shrine was in order. If this sort of thing had happened in downtown Tokyo, his parents would... well, probably not do much. Ask if this was some kind of call for attention, maybe, and then they'd both take to their cell phones to locate a trustworthy doctor and cancel any post-graduation omiai, respectively. 

In contrast, here he could come down to find a steaming mug and a pile of slightly burned toast waiting for his arrival, almost as if nothing had changed. 

"Morning."

Well, alright, the shove-clatter-whump combo that nearly sent him stumbling back into the stairs was kind of new. 

Across the room, Dojima flashed him a rueful look as he righted the kitchen chair, something Souji was quite sure had only tangentially to do with the fact that his nephew was wearing a pair of girl shorts and knee socks, and everything to do with Nanako's crushing grip on his waist. 

"Big bro! Are you hurt?"

Gently, Souji patted her on the head, trying to pull back enough so that she could see he was alright and still mostly himself. "It's okay. It's okay, Nanako. I'm fine, see?"

Nanako didn't because she kept her cheek squashed against his belt buckle, though her arms relaxed slightly. 

"W-was it a car?"

"Huh?" Souji blinked, not quite sure where that had come from, and glanced back at Dojima, who coughed awkwardly and averted his gaze. 

"I... told her you had something of an accident." 

_Oh dear._

"It's... it's okay, Nanako, really. I'm fine. It wasn't a car," Souji murmured, rifling through his pockets and frowning when he came up empty. The handkerchief was still upstairs, tucked into yesterday's discarded jeans, but what bothered him more was that he hadn't even thought to bring it, hadn't thought that explaining things to Nanako might involve tears. "Hey. C'mon, look at me."

Of course, when she finally did look up at him, her wide, round eyes only growing wider and rounder, it didn't exactly make things easier. "...Big... bro...?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me."

 _Even more of me than usual._

Stomping the sarcastic inner voice into submission, Souji crouched down to meet Nanako at eye-level. If nothing else, it might help to lessen the impression that she was staring up at a stranger, an eerie lookalike who had replaced him overnight. 

"Wh-wha...?"

"Listen, Nanako," he said, putting both hands on her shoulders and firmly censoring any explanation that might involve shadows or televisions, anything that might evoke that horrible December that she could recall only dimly. "I know it's going to sound a bit strange, but..." 

_Black magic gave me a sex change._

He bit his tongue and looked at Dojima again, who was fidgeting with his mug of coffee, clearly just as lost. There were dark circles under his eyes, testament to a mostly sleepless night, and Souji felt another pang of guilt because apart from waking up that one time to the certainty that a girl should never lie on her stomach, ever, he'd slept like a log.

"How'd you feel about having a big sis for a while?" 

Hopefully just for a while. His parents aside, he really wasn't looking forward to explaining this to his teachers and classmates back in Tokyo, not to mention the keen-eyed administrators looking through his college applications, and then there would be the hassle of getting his hands on new papers because "Souji" really wasn't a girl's name.

"A big... sis...?" Nanako's eyes grew even rounder. Clearly, he wasn't going to be able to handwave this one. 

At the kitchen table, Dojima cleared his throat and straightened, a look on his face that Souji had gotten used to seeing in the wake of that tumultuous December and that, for all its good intentions, wasn't going to help. It was the look of an experienced cop determined to apply rationale to the supernatural.

"Nanako, your big brother's just a bit under the weather right now. There's this new strain of flu going around, and—"

"Oh no!" In a flash, Nanako's wide-eyed confusion was replaced by worry, and she reached out to feel his temperature. "Do you have a fever? Does your tummy hurt?"

"No, Nanako, it's not—"

Dojima's protest was cut short when Nanako faltered. "I-is... can I get it, too?"

"No, that's—"

"But I don't wanna become a boy!" 

"That won't happen, Nanako, I promise," Souji said, giving her a reassuring smile. "You won't catch anything because I'm not sick. This is just... remember the movie we watched together the other day? With the boy who fell into the hot spring? It's kind of like that."

"Oh." Nanako pondered this for a moment. "Big bro... where'd you find that hot spring?"

"It's—"

"There's no such hot spring, Nanako," Dojima said wearily, giving Souji a look that said he could have made the virus explanation work, and could Souji please try not to invent stories that would send every first-grader in Inaba looking for magical ponds in the woods. "Don't worry about it. It's... complicated adult stuff. And it's just temporary. ...Right?"

"Right," Souji said, and made a mental note to come up with a better story in the event that it wasn't.

Nanako pouted at the display of fatherly authority, but seemed to realize that there was no use asking any further. She allowed herself to be led back to the kitchen table, and the promise of a sweet omelet even helped her to conclude that big bro was still big bro because only big bro made the world's best sweet omelets. 

Dutifully, Souji went about proving her right, allowing the noise of whisks and pans and sizzling batter to drown out the awkwardness until even his uncle abandoned his worried staring, downed his mug and rose to get ready for work. No sooner had he disappeared up the stairs, though, that Souji felt a tug on his sleeve. 

Nanako had climbed up on the stool next to the sink to help with the dishes, gazing at him with a searching expression.

"What's wrong?"

With a glance towards the stairs, she leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper. "Don't worry, big bro... you can tell me. Are you a Sailor Scout?"

.

.

-TBC-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Apparently canon has Souji as Yuu Narukami now. But I don't feel like changing all my fics to match.  
> 2) Yeah, the Dojimas are just that good at rolling with the punches.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yosuke navigates a store, and contemplates the social significance of shoulder-bumps.

Catastrophes, Yosuke reflected, always gained a slightly hilarious edge when you were sleep-deprived and surrounded by the fumes of questionable concoctions. 

Shiroku Tinctures and Traditional Remedies wasn't the best place to be in even while wide awake and in possession of all his wits, but going there on maybe three hours of uneasy rest and rummaging around the shelves all groggy was practically a guarantee that he'd end up with his hands in at least one basket of dried spider legs or whatever. 

Speaking of spider legs… 

Yosuke suppressed a shudder and squinted harder at the bottle his hands had grabbed without any input from his brain, trying to decipher the tiny label with all the ingredients on the back. Handwritten with what was either spy ink or a felt pen on the brink of death. In Chinese. 

He was starting to suspect that the old lady in charge of the store derived some secret pleasure from watching clueless customers walk out with a bag full of unspeakable horrors, because that looked like the kanji for "frog eyes" right there. 

Urgh. 

Definitely a last resort. Or not, because he couldn't imagine frog eyes or any other body part of any other earthly creature was going to help with a problem that was, quite literally, out of this world. If he was perfectly honest with himself, and Yosuke was trying hard not to be right now, Shiroku's crazy medicines would be about as helpful as spending half the night looking up information on black magic rituals and voodoo curses, but that's what he'd done anyway. 

At least, he was doing _something_. 

Unlike, seemingly, mostly everyone else, if their disturbing glee during yesterday's bra-shopping misadventure had been any indication. 

Bra-shopping. 

Yosuke shuddered again, and very nearly smacked his forehead against a rack of chicken claws to replace the mental trauma with physical pain. As if Teddie's nighttime mumbles about his love for sensei-tionally juicy melons hadn't been bad enough. 

He wasn't even sure where that bear was getting his perv factor from; _one_ stray swimsuit magazine couldn't have done all that damage. Besides, this was Souji. There should have been some kind of automatic anti-perving rule for that, if not out of sheer worry, then out of respect for their leader. And anyway, why was everybody suddenly down with the wolf whistles and the ogling? If Yosuke did it, even as a joke, he could count on a swift dragon kick in the rear, but if Souji was in a real, actual fix, all of a sudden it was booby bonanza?

Urgh. Urgh. Stupid, sleep-deprived brain. Why did it need to go there?

"I don't think you need to go there, dearie."

"Huh?" 

Yosuke whipped around to catch Shiroku's owner watching him with an amused twinkle in her eyes. 

"I'm pretty sure you won't need any help with that for a good, long while."

_Huh?_

Following the motion of her hand, Yosuke turned back around, taking in the curtain of pink beads, the cloying floral aroma, and the distinctly heart-shaped signs plastering the way into a secluded separate room that promised to help with "Love Troubles, Big and Small. Keep Going to Keep the Magic Going."

"ARGH!"

He was pretty sure he heard the old hag giggle when he stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away from where his stupid, unsupervised feet had almost led him. His face was still burning some minutes later when he'd calmed his heart rate enough to stomp up to the register and shove his picks at her — one relief for fevers and dizzy spells, an ointment for aching joints, some herbal heat patches against back pain, and Izanami-on-a-freaking-pogo-stick would he stop thinking about the reasons _why_ Souji might want something against back pain.

"There, there, dearie," the owner crooned, patting his arm consolingly as she handed him a paper bag with his purchases. "Nothing to get upset about. You're young, it's perfectly normal to have doubts." 

" _What?!_ "

Goddammit, his voice hadn't cracked like that since first grade of middle school. Too bad that holes in the ground weren't prone to opening up just because Yosuke silently prayed for them to, and that the beat-up TV behind the counter was no larger than a microwave. 

If the heavens held him in any favor at all, the old bat might be too near-sighted to recognize his face, so he at least wouldn't have to deal with the middle-aged housewives of Inaba running their mouths about how Hanamura's eldest son was having issues with his manhood.

"It'll all happen naturally," she advised serenely as she counted out the change one coin at a time, while Yosuke had to remind himself that wishing grievous bodily harm upon the elderly was generally frowned upon. "The best way to impress your girlfriend is to just be yourself."

She made what looked distinctly not like an "I'll stop embarrassing you now, thanks for your business" gesture at the door, and Yosuke had to remind himself that turning around and dashing out of the neighborhood witchcraft store with his eyes closed was a dangerous and pointless thing to do.

He didn't even try to fool himself thinking that maybe some _other_ girl had come into the store, preferably some out-of-towner who'd wandered in here by mistake, because nobody else below the age of fifty ever came in here. 

The least he could do, Yosuke figured, was face the next humiliation of the day like a man, and it had nothing to do with how Souji in his current… condition was blocking the narrow entrance rather effectively. 

He looked kind of weird, leaning against the doorframe with his guy height and his guy slouch, but trying out the girly finger-wriggle wave that Rise assured them was the trendiest feminine greeting this side of Shibuya. 

"Morning."

It wouldn't be quite that disturbing — okay, it would still be plenty freaking disturbing, but maybe not quite as brain-fryingly bizarre — if Souji hadn't sounded so perky. 

Which was a tone Yosuke shouldn't even be able to name, because Souji didn't _do_ perky. He was the secretly-laughing-at-you-behind-my-face-of-plausible-deniability kind of guy, or the nobody's-being-murdered-and-dinner-is-coming-along-nicely guy, or, on video game night, the mercilessly-smug-curbstomper-of-Yosuke's-gamer-pride guy.

Speaking of pride, Yosuke was just going to blame this oddly specific knowledge of Souji's vocal range on the sudden sharp awareness that, despite everything, Souji still mostly sounded like, well, Souji. 

Except perky. Which Yosuke was pretty sure was just the higher pitch, because Souji was sane and not enjoying this situation, unlike certain other people. Girls' voices always sounded some variation of perky to Yosuke, even when they weren't, which made it really hard to tell what girls were on about most of the time, though to be honest, Souji didn't really sound like a girl, or even like a dude trying to speak falsetto. 

He just sounded the way Yosuke's brain inexplicably determined Souji _should_ have sounded if he'd been a girl all along, and maybe it was time to stop this train of thought because a) the hell was he doing psychoanalyzing Souji's freaking voice, and b) the owner of that voice was starting to peer at him questioningly, mostly because Yosuke had yet to answer his greeting like a normal human being.

"Um. Mornin'."

He swallowed, and refused to think about how he hadn't sounded so forcibly cheerful since that supremely awkward morning more than a year ago when he'd been forced to introduce himself to the new guy through the walls of a trashcan. 

Apparently, Souji thought so, too, because he blinked. "Are you—"

"Fine!" Yosuke coughed, and lowered his voice. "Uh, I'm fine, no worries. C'mon, let's go before something else happens."

"Something happened?" Souji still hadn't cleared the exit, apparently intent on getting a more convincing answer. Or forcing Yosuke to leave the place of 1001 humiliations by wall-hugging his way outside.

"Yes. No! …Sort of. It's not important. C'mon!" 

Normally, he would have punctuated the statement with a shoulder-bump towards wherever he wanted to go, nice, simple and so automatic he didn't even realize it until Souji would send him staggering with a shove of his own, but now, he found himself balking at the thought. It wasn't even that Souji's shoulders were decidedly narrower than they used to be and clad in an absurdly delicate-looking lace vest (and whose bright idea had that been again?), not exactly. 

It was more that his brain was suddenly running a tally of every person he'd ever nudged like that — classmates from his old school, Kanji, Daisuke, prim-and-proper shortstuff Kou — and realizing he'd never done it to a girl. Hadn't ever considered doing it to a girl, not even Chie, who was as tomboyish and fists-and-elbows as they came, except Souji _wasn't_ a girl, not really, not beyond this little accident with shadow magic or whatever, and that shouldn't have meant anything, shouldn't have been any reason to make him hesitate—

"Yosuke?"

Crap, that's what he got for having another brain freeze in front of a guy — girl —  _whatever_ — who had some kind of built-in antenna for emotional distress.

"…I think the owner is trying to tell you something."

"Eh?"

In a way, it was almost a relief to lose his dignity for the fifth time in as many minutes, to crane his head and catch the owner flashing him the old-people approximation of a thumbs-up sign. The sight rather effectively booted out uncomfortable thoughts in favor of different, but somehow less throat-constrictingly uncomfortable thoughts, and the fresh rush of embarrassment allowed him to execute his escape in all its swift, graceless perfection.

He turned, and wall-hugged his way out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part one of something that should have been a full chapter, but got posted anyway because RL is really doing a number on my writing schedule right now. 
> 
> \- I couldn't find any data on Kou's height, but he looked kind of short in the game. I like shortie basketball players, anyhow. ^^


End file.
